Last night I scrolled through my Twitter feed to catch up on world events. I read about the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas/Al Qasaam Brigade that was shortly to go into effect, the growing chorus of condemnation of Israel’s alleged war crimes, and an article about the mounting anti-Semitism in France. I marveled at our access to events and ideas in this social media age. It was then that my eyes fell on a phrase in a tweet from a Christian leader that sent chills down my spine.

Beginning with a quote from renowned New Testament scholar N. T. Wright about Jesus “fulfilling Israel’s vocation,” Zahnd declares emphatically that, “Israel died.” Pause and think about it. Not as a stand-alone proposition, but as a Christian one. “In Messiah Israel died.” A Jesus follower took to social media to exalt the idea that the cross was as much about the termination of Judaism as it was the salvation of the world. He followed up the chilling statement by saying that, “This lies at the heart of Paul’s theology” (attempting to assure us of its centrality in the Good News).

As the nations of the earth are reeling to and fro with anti-Judaic rage, I found Zahnd’s statement poorly timed, incredibly depressing, grievously offensive, and profoundly unbiblical. The reason I bring it up however, is not because of how rare or provocative it is but, because of how common and widely accepted it is. Zahnd’s statements represents a growing pop-cultural trend within the Body of Christ today that suggests many of the world’s greatest injustices (chief among them, the Israeli occupation of Palestine) could be decisively dealt with by pulling the pins out of the long held Biblical theology of future grace for national Israel.

The recent incursion in Gaza has stirred the hearts of many Christians who embrace various expressions of anti-Judaism to take to social media to protest theological belief in a future for national Israel. They criticize those who hold to future grace calling them “heretics” (Carl Medearis) and “Christian jihadis” who have “repudiated Jesus, repudiated the Bible, and are an abomination” (Stephen Sizer). They assure us that they aren’t anti-Semites. Some of them are telling the truth. However, this brings little consolation given the historical fact that the theological soil of anti-Judaism has consistently produced formidable anti-Semitism that has shed much Jewish blood.

Whenever I engage with individuals who share Zahnd’s glad-hearted belief that Jesus came not only to redeem the fallen sons of Adam but to displace the covenantal son’s of Abraham, the name N. T. Wright is more often than not brought into the discussion (in fact, below Zahnd’s tweet, someone responded saying, “Bishop Wright says ‘Amen.’”). Without question, Wright is the premier theological voice promoting the new Replacement Theology of our generation. So instead of sifting through the claims of street level anti-Judaism, I think it is important that we go straight to the ivory tower. Given that Wright has been possibly the chief catalyst for the resurgence of this theological persuasion in our day, his prolific work deserves out time. Moreover, a river never rises higher than its source. Wright offers us the clearest and most sophisticated presentation of the idea that when Jesus came, “Israel died.”

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N. T. Wright is one of the most notable New Testament theologians of our time. I am grateful for the valuable contributions he has made to the development of theological thought in our generation through his prolific scholarship. The purpose of this article however, is to explore and challenge some of his core beliefs related to Second Temple Judaism (for which he is most known) and its influence on contemporary expressions of Displacement Theology.

My aim here is to demonstrate three things: (1) that Wright’s theology is consistent with the long history of Divestment/Displacement/Replacement Theology that predates his scholarship; (2) that this theological system is rooted in anti-Judaic hermeneutics of abrogation and redefinition; and (3) that it ought to be universally rejected in favor of a more Biblical alternative which can be observed in both Testaments.

I.   THE BASICS OF WRIGHT’S DIVESTMENT THEOLOGY

While N. T. Wright’s views on Second Temple Judaism have been deemed novel (“the new perspective on Paul”), when it comes to the identity and destiny of the Jewish people, he stands in solidarity with a long succession of Christians who embrace what I call Divestment Theology. Some use the terms “replacement theology” or “supercessionism” to describe this view. So as to distance themselves from the overt anti-Semitism of blatant anti-Semitism of so many before them, Wright and others understandably prefer the word “fulfillment.” In an attempt to circumvent dealing with this long-standing argument over semantics that has the potential to distract us from the heart of the matter, I choose to use the term Divestment Theology and encourage others do the same. When all of the definitions are boiled down to their essence, we are dealing with a basic argument over the issue of the divestment. Adopting this term may help advance the discussion into new and necessary areas of consideration.

Mirriam Webster defines “divestment” in these terms:

to deprive or dispossess especially of property, authority, or title

to undress or strip especially of clothing, ornament, or equipment

to rid or free

to take away from a person

With these terms fresh in your mind, let’s read some Wright’s most distilled statements on his theology of Israel—both the people and the Land. Let’s begin with his understanding of the Land:

He [Jesus] had not come to rehabilitate the symbol of the holy land, but to subsume it within a different fulfillment of the kingdom, which would embrace the whole creation. …Jesus spent his whole ministry redefining what the kingdom meant. He refused to give up the symbolic language of the kingdom, but filled it with such new content that, as we have seen, he powerfully subverted Jewish expectations.[1]

Wright argues that the Land that was promised over and over again as an everlasting provision of the everlasting covenant to the everlasting nation has been emptied of its original substance and “filled” with another; something “new”. That which was promised to Abraham was never intended to be conceived the way it was declared but rather, as a “symbol” that has been “redefined.” This “redefinition” is so radical that thousands of years of “Jewish expectation” of the fulfillment of God’s immutable word and purposes have been “powerfully subverted.”

At the heart of his belief is the idea that the long-established national hope of the Jewish people has been abrogated and “redefined” so as to constitute a “different fulfillment.” What kind of fulfillment? A fulfillment whereby the “whole creation” is included on the one hand and Israel is divested of their national destiny and hope on the other (to their shame?).

He argues that Jesus proclaimed that the Land promised to Israel was in actuality a temporary object lesson with no abiding value beyond its fleeting historical purpose (like a now empty, shattered and discarded shell). Why does this matter? By asserting that Jesus “powerfully subverted [which means “to ruin or undermine”] Jewish expectations” he is saying that Jesus powerfully subverted Jewish identity and destiny. He is divesting (depriving, dispossessing, stripping) Israel of their established identity and doctrinally dismantling abiding provisional elements of what was unequivocally declared to be an everlasting covenant.

Thus says the Lord,?who gives the sun for light by day?and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,?who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—?the Lord of hosts is his name:?“If this fixed order departs?from before me, declares the Lord, ?then shall the offspring of Israel cease?from being a nation before me forever.” (Jeremiah 31:35-36)

When it comes to the issue of the Land that was intrinsic to the everlasting covenant made to Abraham, Wright believes in abrogation and redefinition. What about the Jewish people? If their “expectation” related to their national and territorial destiny has been “subverted” and reconstructed into something “new”, what about them as a people?

Through the Messiah and the preaching which heralds him, Israel is transformed from being an ethnic people into a worldwide family.[2]

Ignoring the fact that the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, spoke of the covenant people of God as an international family, he believes that the promises made to Israel as a distinct, peculiar, and elect national people group have been abrogated, annulled, and modified. The problem here is not in what he affirms. We share in Wright’s celebration of the worldwide implications of the redemptive work of Christ Jesus irrespective to ethnicity or nationality (which, again, has always been a central theme in the Old Testament). The problem is in what he ignores and denies: God’s fidelity to His Word. The following paragraph from his book The New Testament and the People of God will help illustrate.

Those who now belonged to Jesus’ people were not identical with ethnic Israel, since Israel’s history had reached its intended fulfillment; they claimed to be the continuation of Israel in a new situation, able to draw on Israel-images to express their self-identity, able to read Israel’s Scriptures (through the lens of Messiah and spirit) and apply them to their own life. They were thrust out by that claim, and that reading, to fulfill Israel’s vocation on behalf of the world.[3]

By stating, “Israel’s history had reached its intended fulfillment,” Wright is arguing that there will be absolutely no future vindication of any of the outstanding covenantal promises made to national Israel. All of those promises have been redefined and now are to ascribed to the new Israel who has made the old redundant. The multitudes of promises and prophecies have been emptied of their original meaning and filled with new and very different ones.

           He grounds his argument in the idea that the early Church “claimed to be the continuation of Israel in a new situation.” A “new situation” calls for a “new Israel;” one that will actually “fulfill” the old “Israel’s vocation” of being a light unto the world and a blessing to all nations. The message to the Jewish people then is that they have the right to join themselves to this new situation by embracing the new definitions of the new covenant comprised of new elements and the obligation to repent of their long held expectations that were (strangely) communicated to them in an everlasting oath. This is the heart of the matter. The Jewish people need to understand (implies Wright) that their vocation has been taken from them (because of their failure) and given to another in accordance with a new prophetic-historic program (which I might point out bears striking resemblances to the underpinning ideological basis of Dispensational theology).

In his book Climax of the Covenant he makes one of the clearest statements about the divestment of Israel’s identify and destiny of his whole career as a scholar.

[Paul] has systematically transferred the privileges and attributes of ‘Israel’ to the Messiah and His [new] people [the Church]. It is therefore greatly preferable to take…“Israel” as a typically Pauline polemical redefinition…[4]

Note the terms “systematic transfer” and “polemic redefinition.” The Jewish hope that was provoked and fostered for centuries through a rich history of prophetic utterance pertaining to Israel’s “everlasting”[5] national destiny[6] and irrevocable, inalienable gifts and callings[7] have been altogether “subverted,” undone, and revised for the “new Jesus people.” God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (that were affirmed by the prophets and apostles) have been completely overhauled to the extent that they now take on a completely new meaning. If “privileges and attributes” have been “systematically transferred” to one it goes without saying that those privileges and attributes have been transferred from another. This is displacement. This is replacement. This is divestment. To “transfer” is to dispossess. Articulate Divestment Theologians Gary DeMar and Peter Leithart echo Wright with added vitriol saying,

…in destroying Israel, Christ transferred the blessings of the kingdom from Israel to a new people, the Church.[8]

In this view, God’s election of Israel as a nation was as transient as the “added” Mosaic Law (Gal. 3:17) that has now been made “obsolete” (Heb. 8:13) by the death and resurrection of Jesus. He believes that while Jews are welcome to join the new covenant family (the Church, “the new Israel”), the promises that were made to Abraham and his descendants have been revised, redefined, abrogated, and modified. He argues that as far as God is concerned, there is no such thing as “national Israel” and never will be. In effect, Israel’s national destiny died with Christ.

II.   THE HERMENEUTICS OF WRIGHT’S DIVESTMENT THEOLOGY

Wright’s ideas are logical conclusions that have been drawn because of his overarching interpretive method—his hermeneutics. His approach to Biblical interpretation is the root that feeds the rotten fruit of his Divestment Theology. While there is a vast volume of work we could draw from to examine his hermeneutics we will consider just one paragraph. It is sufficient to demonstrate the heart of the matter. In my judgment, to understand Wright’s view of exile is to understand how he reaches the conclusions that he does. It also serves as a signpost pointing us back to the road of truth from which he and so many have veered. Speaking of Second Temple Judaism in which Jesus lived,

Most Jews of this period, it seems, would have answered the question ‘where are we?’ in language which reduced to its simplest form, meant, we are still in exile. They believed that, in all the senses which mattered, Israel’s exile was still in progress. Although she had come back from Babylon, the glorious message of the prophets remained unfulfilled, Israel still remained in thrall to foreigners; worse Israel’s god had not returned to Zion.[9]

            Much of what Wright says here is emphatically correct. Sadly though, those truths are rendered useless and misleading in light of that which is emphatically wrong. Pitre explains,

Wright is absolutely right to suggest that any first-century Jew would have believed that “Israel’s exile was still in progress.” Moreover, he is absolutely right to suggest that the hope for return from “exile,” reiterated throughout the Old Testament, would constitute a central hope of Jewish eschatology. Perhaps most significantly, he is also right when he claims that “the glorious message of the prophets remained unfulfilled.” However, he is fundamentally wrong in his understanding of “the exile” itself. For while no first-century Jew living in the Land would have considered themselves to still be in exile, every first-century Jew would have known that the ten tribes of the northern kingdom were still in exile.

Pitre explains how Wright’s focus on Babylonian exile is illegitimate at best and misleading at worst. The issue that Wright consistently overlooks and fails to address in all his writing on exile is the fact the ten northern tribes of Israel who were scattered because of the Assyrian invasion (that preceded Babylon’s by over a century) never returned. Why is this so important? Because the incredible volume of prophetic decrees related to Israel’s national identity and destiny always included a restoration of not only the two southern tribes who were scattered by Babylon but also the ten northern tribes who were scattered by Assyria. As Pitre says, “Wright has the right insight but the wrong exile.” He explains:

…the glorious message of the prophets was never merely for Judah’s release from political domination and return of YHWH to the Temple—as important as these may be. The glorious message of the prophets consistently envisioned the restoration of all twelve tribes of Israel in a final return from exile under the headship of a Messianic king, shepherd, or prince. In other words, the glorious message of the prophets of necessity awaited the end of Assyrian exile…of the ten tribes which had been scattered…never to be gathered again.

Of the multitudes of passages we could cite to build a case for a future ingathering of all twelve tribes, I will cite two; one from the Old Testament and one from the New.

The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the people of Israel associated with him’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him.’ And join them one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not tell us what you mean by these?’ say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him. And I will join with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand. When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, then say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

“My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” (Ezekiel 37:15-28 ESV)

            In stark contrast to Wright’s theological narrative, the blessing of all nations does not mean the Divestment of the Jewish people—just the opposite. According to Ezekiel, God’s zeal to bless the nations is proportional to His zeal to restore the Jewish people. It is not one of the other but both/and. While that is a valuable point, the relevant part of Ezekiel’s prophecy to our subject is the prophet’s emphasis on the tribal restoration of Israel within a national and territorial identity and destiny. God promises to reunite and regather Israel and Judah to the Land for a great work of grace and sanctification that will have global implications (cf. Romans 11:11-32). This matters because this prophetic narrative renders Wright’s exilic theology hollow. Return from Babylon is not the point in question. The reunification of the twelve tribes and the restoration to the Land is central to the Biblical theology of Israel. Pitre summarizes:

Wright has mistakenly abandoned the primary significance of the link between the “exile” and the prophetic hope for the crucial ingathering of all twelve tribes to Zion in a New Exodus. He thereby misses the monumental import of the fact that the greater part of Israel—the ten northern tribes—was still in literal geographical exile. Moreover, in so doing, he also misses that it was this literal, geographical exile that had its own spiritual and covenantal significance: namely, that the scattered tribes of Israel were still suffering under the greatest of the Deuteronomic curses: the curse of exile (Deut. 28:58-68). When these points are taken into account, there is no longer any need to reinterpret “exile” away from expulsion from the land, for even on the level of Israelite history, most of Israel had not in fact returned to the land—despite the many promises of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others, that the God of Israel would do just that. And this was a fact of great eschatological as well as historical significance.[10]

Instead of allowing the text to speak for itself, Wright forces a new definition of exile and of return to the extent that it actually excludes expulsion from the land! The very thing that makes exile exile, Wright dismisses and reinterprets to fit the system of Divestment saying that

…exile refers to a period of history with certain characteristics, not a geographical situation…exile in the sense that I am using it is, of course, a metaphor (since its meaning transcends geographical exile, the normal literal reference).[11]

What was intended to be understood at face value, according to Wright, is to be emptied of its plain meaning and filled with a new metaphorical one that in effect alters the entirety of the Biblical narrative concerning the identity and destiny of the Jewish people on the basis of covenant.

His logic rests on three basic ideas: (1) The definition of exile has been altered to exclude expulsion. (2) The definition of return has been altered to exclude territorial restoration. (3) The definition of Israel has been altered to exclude the twelve northern tribes scattered by Assyria.

One of the reasons why Wright (along with the wider body of Divestment Theologians) fails to ever address this vast body of prophetic literature regarding the tribal restoration (Deut. 30:3-4; Neh. 1:9; Hos. 1:1; 11:11; Is. 11:11-16; 14:1-2; 27:2-13; 43:4-6; 49:5-6; 66:18-21; Jer. 3:11, 18; 16:14-16; 23:5-8; 31:7-14; 32:37; Ez. 11:17; 20:1-44; 34:11-16; 36:24; 37:11-14, 15-28; 47:13, 21-23; 48:1-29, 30-35; Zech. 2:10; 8:13; Amos 9:11-15; etc.) is that it exposes the lengths to which one must go to redefine the basic prophetic elements of these monumental passages. Wright is essentially emptying every prophetic promise made to Israel of its original meaning and filling it with a new one. I assume he wants to downplay this as much as he can, as it is no different in essence than the rabid replacement theology held by open anti-Semites of old.

Another reason for the omission is surely due to the fact that, in his mind, this is an exclusively Old Testament idea that the New Testament has “polemically redefined.” One wonders then how such a renowned scholar of the Gospel of Matthew missed Jesus’ incredible statement about the territorial and tribal restoration of Israel upon His return.

Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28 ESV)

            King Jesus of the New Testament seemed to believe in a future national and territorial hope for the twelve tribes of Israel as forecast by the prophets of Old. Why wouldn’t Wright? Simple: (1) His theology of exile is based on the erroneous focus on Babylonian exile of the two southern tribes and the wholesale failure to mention the ongoing exile of the other ten tribes scattered by Assyria. (2) His theology of exile is predicated on the belief that all of the “unfulfilled promises” of return need to be reinterpreted, redefined, and revised in accordance with a “new” plan that “subverts” the old Jewish hope that came to fuel prophetic (and apostolic) eschatology. (3) His theology of exile assumes that Jesus viewed the provisions contained within the “everlasting covenant” as fleeting and transient like the Mosaic blood sacrifices that were commanded centuries later. By conflating the “everlasting [Abrahamic] covenant” with the “old [Mosaic] covenant” he is able to render the former as obsolete as the latter. Divestment Theologians believe that

[In the New Testament] the land, like the law, particular and provisional, [have] become irrelevant.[12]

In this method of interpretation they are grouping the priesthood, sacrifices, and rituals introduced to Israel through the Covenant made with Moses and the Land promised to Abraham together. Thus they argue that Jesus’ ministry effectively made both categories (the physical, priestly sacrificial system and the Land itself) obsolete, without present or future significance. The Land and the blood sacrifices are entwined, and thus (according to this logic) Jesus’ blood has abolished the need for either. The suggestion then is that both Covenants—the Abrahamic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant—have been abandoned (what they call “redefined” or “fulfilled”) by God. Addressing this faulty perspective, Barry Horner refutes saying:

The land was not promised to Abraham as a passing shadow, as something merely provisional. There is no such statement in the Bible. Rather, unlike the structure of the Mosaic economy, the land is perpetuated as a vital element of the new covenant (Jer. 31:27-40; Eze. 11:14-21; 36:22-37:23). In other words, it is important to understand that the Abrahamic Covenant finds its fulfillment in the new covenant, notwithstanding the intervening, temporal Mosaic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant promised the land, and the intervening Mosaic covenant involved temporal association with the land, yet the new covenant declares consummate fulfillment of that promise to Abraham with its specific references to the land, and not some extrapolated, abstract universalism. In particular, the new covenant describes Israel’s return to the land from dispersion as ‘the land that I gave to your forefathers’ (Jer. 31:38-40; Eze. 11:17; 36:24, 28).

So in terms of roots, the Old Testament as a whole always originally identifies the land with the Abrahamic covenant, but never the subsequent Mosaic covenant. Certainly the Mosaic covenant draws on the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant (Exod. 3:6-8, 15-17; 13:5; 33:1-3; Lev. 20:24; Num. 13:27), but the Mosaic covenant can never nullify that which was inaugurated with unilateral finality 430 years earlier (Galatians 3:17). While the New Testament frequently describes the Mosaic old covenant as being comprised of shadows and types, this terminology is never directly applied to the promise character of the Abrahamic covenant, despite its sign of circumcision (Col. 2:16-17; Heb. 8:3-6, 10:1). Circumcision was the sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham, but the land was never regarded as a sign of the covenant; rather, it was intrinsic to that covenant, and this is a most vital distinction to keep in mind (Gen. 12:1, 7). This is the reason the land is distinguished from Mosaic typology – it is an abiding reality in itself.[13]

            This is the dividing line between two theological schools of thought: one distinguishes between the “everlasting covenant” and the “old covenant” and the other conflates the two into one passing reality that now bears no prophetic significance. This abrogative approach to the Old Testament is the wellspring of all Divestment Theology throughout all of Church history. It is the foundation of the hermeneutics of Wright’s worldview.

III.   WHY WE SHOULD REJECT DIVESTMENT THEOLOGY

Wright stands in solidarity with scores of anti-Judaic Christians who were grievously on the wrong side of history and the Lord’s heart when it came to the issue of Israel’s identity and destiny. He promotes the same basic Replacement Theology of displacement and divestment that has plagued the Church (and repelled the Jewish people) since the beginning (albeit a more tender expression than that of his often anti-Semitic theological forefathers who held the same core beliefs). Albertus Pieters captures the spirit of anti-Judaism is the following tragic statement.

God willed that after the institution of the New Covenant there should no longer be any Jewish people in the world—yet here they are! That is a fact—a very sad fact, brought about by their wicked rebellion against God.[14]

Wright’s teaching on the subject is much milder than that of Augustine, John Chrysostom, Martin Luther, or Pieters (men who lamented the existence of the Jewish people calling for their expulsion and deportation). We can and ought to be grateful about that. But we should also challenge it on the basis that it is of the same stock and built on the same foundational ideas. Such thinking is fed from the same ideological root system and ought to be treated by academics and lay Christians alike as one of the many expressions of the same destructive anti-Judaic Divestment Theology that has heaped shame on the Church of Jesus and kept the Jewish people at a distance for two thousand years.

Like N. T. Wright, J. C. Ryle was an Anglican Bishop in England over a century ago. In the mid-1800’s he wrangled with the same Divestment Theology that Wright now promotes. He and others like Charles Spurgeon, Horatius Bonar, and Robert Murray M’Cheyne took a united stand against it by writing and speaking about the faithfulness of God and the integrity of His Word. In 1858 he wrote the following.

What I protest against is, the habit of allegorizing plain sayings of the Word of God concerning the future history of the nation Israel, and explaining away the fulness of their contents in order to accommodate them to the Gentile Church. I believe the habit to be unwarranted by anything in Scripture, and to draw after it a long train of evil consequences.[15]

            That long train of evil consequences culminated in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka. One would think that theological anti-Judaism would have vanished after the Holocaust. Sadly that is not the case. The doctrinal worldview of men like N. T. Wright and those who share his abrogative hermeneutics of divestment and displacement are evidence that it still bears considerable influence on the Church of Jesus. I do not believe Wright is anti-Semitic. I do however believe that different men who held the same beliefs about the Jewish people were. And that alone is enough reason to treat his theology with caution and discernment. The theological anti-Judaism that riddled the European Church during Hitler’s reign didn’t necessarily produce the Final Solution—but it did however set a generation of Christians up to cower in the face of it in shameful silence and indifference.

Given the unprecedented mounting expression of anti-Semitism in the nations of the earth today, and the growing hostility within the Church towards all things Judaic, we need to seriously and humbly assess our foundations.

Today’s Christian theological anti-Judaism will undoubtedly be tomorrow’s Christian anti-Semitism. Sadly, many are ahead of their time.

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[1] Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK: 1996), 446, 471. 17.

[2] The Climax of the Covenant (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 240. 18.

[3] The New Testament and the People of God (London: SPCK, 1992), 457–58.

[4] The Climax of the Covenant (Minneapolis: Fortress Press October 1, 1993), 25.

[5] Genesis 17:7-8

[6] Jeremiah 31:31-36

[7] Romans 11:28-29

[8] Gary DeMar and Peter Leithart, The Reduction of Christianity (Dominion Press, 1988), 213.

[9] The New Testament and the People of God, pg 268-269; also reiterated in Jesus and the Victory of God, pg. 126-127, 203-204.

[10] Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile, pg. 39.

[11] From In Grateful Dialogue, pg. 259.

[12] W. D. Davies, The Gospel and the Land, 1st ed. (Berkley, California: University of California Press, October 1974), 179.

[13] Horner, Future Israel, chap. 9.

[14] Albertus Pieters, The Seed of Abraham (Michigan: Eerdmans, 1950), 123.

[15]J. C. Ryle, Are You Ready For The End Of Time? (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2001), 107-108.